r, of necessity, she had to travel at the cheap rate, among the crowd
of poorer passengers who were herded aft the packet boat, leaning up
against one another, sitting on bundles and packages of all kinds; that
part of the deck, reeking with the smell of tar and sea-water, damp,
squally and stuffy, was an abomination of hideous discomfort to
the dainty, fastidious lady of fashion, yet she almost welcomed the
intolerable propinquity, the cold douches of salt water, which every now
and then wetted her through and through, for it was the consequent
sense of physical wretchedness that helped her to forget the intolerable
anguish of her mind.

And among these poorer travellers she felt secure from observation. No
one took much notice of her. She looked just like one of the herd, and
in the huddled-up little figure, in the dark bedraggled clothes, no
one would for a moment have recognized the dazzling personality of Lady
Blakeney.

Drawing her hood well over her head, she sat in a secluded corner of the
deck, upon the little black valise which contained the few belongings
she had brought with her. Her cloak and dress, now mud-stained and dank
with splashings of salt-water, attracted no one's attention. There was
a keen northeasterly breeze, cold and penetrating, but favourable to a
rapid crossing. Marguerite, who had gone through several hours of
weary travelling by coach, before she had embarked at Dover in the late
afternoon, was unspeakably tired. She had watched the golden sunset
out at sea until her eyes were burning with pain, and as the dazzling
crimson and orange and purple gave place to the soft grey tones of
evening, she descried the round cupola of the church of Our Lady of
Boulogne against the dull background of the sky.

After that her mind became a blank. A sort of torpor fell over her
sense: she was wakeful and yet half-asleep, unconscious of everything
around her, seeing nothing but the distant massive towers of old
Boulogne churches gradually detaching themselves one by one from out the
fast gathering gloom.

The town seemed like a dream city, a creation of some morbid
imagination, presented to her mind's eye as the city of sorrow and
death.

When the boat finally scraped her sides along the rough wooden jetty,
Marguerite felt as if she were forcibly awakened. She was numb and stiff
and thought she must have fallen asleep during the last half hour of the
journey. Everything round her was dark. The sky w